


The Grave of the Stray Dog

by the17thmuse



Series: Hatake Agricultural Adventures [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Demon Tree, Implied Corpse Desecration, Implied Murder(s), Implied Relationships, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 02:21:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21129194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the17thmuse/pseuds/the17thmuse
Summary: (Follows "Let Me Tell You a Story About a Pretty Samurai")Why the Hatake Had to Move Away





	The Grave of the Stray Dog

**Author's Note:**

> Follows "Let Me Tell You a Story About a Pretty Samurai"

It was a universal fact that Kama was the wildest and most willful (and would grow up to be the most sadistic) of Shiroki's children. 

He was also most certainly the most trouble-prone, the one to take the most effort to teach, and the one who keeps asking questions without stopping. 

_"It was no small wonder Hahaue loved him so"_, Momohime, the oldest of the wolf companions, once said. The alpha spoke in wolf-speak, of course. Everyone knows only the Great Names and the spirit-touched encounter talking animals outside of stories.

(Kama also caught her calling his mother a "ma-so-chist" in the same tone. Whatever it was sounded painful.)

He specifically liked to think he has the closest relationship with Shiroki-hahaue, being the only one privy to her admittedly few secrets. But that mostly happened because he always couldn't leave well enough alone. 

Curiosity and trouble had always come hand-in-hand for the young whirlwind child. And sometimes, being the keeper of his mother's mysterious past was hard, even if he wasn't even aware of it in the first place.

Their small house bordering the forest near Kyukei village had been home for a long time and Hahaue gave the impression she didn't want to leave. Kama (not even two digits old at the time) had the bigger impression she liked shinobi in general even less so, but logic was winning out. 

Senju-san was right and Hahaue could not defend Kama and all his siblings on her own forever, even with him around. Especially since some of his enemies had followed them here.

(And they will come. Hokama made to apologize again for putting them in danger, but a sharp look from Hahaue made him stop mid-sentence.)

Maybe Kama shouldn't have talked to the wounded shinobi in the first place. But he was hiding in Kama's tree. That's his super special secret and safe place.

Even if it was not safe anymore.

He and his six siblings could take care of the occasional trespasser—almost all their crop patches have names now—but an army of skilled and trained shinobi may be too much. Even if Hahaue wiped out the first two parties with her lightning sword and Momohime's pack, and Hokama-san used what he called his "Mou-ku-ton" to help.

Kama, Suki, Togarashi and Kabocha can do fine on their own, but someone had to watch over Mitsuba, Retasu, and Naya. And there were the two runaways, Yuri and Kaya, to consider too. They didn't even know how to fight. 

And lastly, Hokama-san still has a broken leg that needs to rest from time to time, or it will heal wrong. So that left them no choice but to leave Kyukei, but only once the rest of the Senju reinforcements arrive.

Some of the Senju shinobi were nice, like that kunoichi with the dark hair and pointy face, but some of the others were mean or condensing, like Ima-san. Kama didn't know if they weren't as nice because they only saw a farmer's boy. He wonders if Ima-san will still be mean once Hahaue breaks his face.

A little part of him cannot help but be excited though. They're going to live in Hi no Kuni now!

Kama didn't know where that is exactly, but Hahaue might—she knows a lot about the places she'd gone to before—so he went to look for her. 

Except, he could not find her anywhere.

None of the others at home has seen her, so he checked the village, but she wasn't at the market, or the square, or anywhere else she could possibly be. 

Kama was so confused. _Where could his mother have gone to?_

The child looked so lost that the village elder, Kenja-jisan, gave him a poke on the shoulder and told him his mother went to to visit his father's grave.

That made Kama even more confused. 

Hahaue never spoke about ever having been married, and Kama and his siblings grew from plants, which was a secret he shouldn't tell other people. 

He went to the graveyard, frowning all the way.

Kama did not find her there. Did he miss her somehow? He checked all the graves! 

Well, maybe not all of them. 

There was still the lone man's stone by the Bleeding Tree, and Kama shivered at the thought.

The Bleeding Tree was called that because it always bleeds. That many years ago, a man who had died really horribly had been buried there, and a tree grew on the spot overnight and started bleeding. 

A much younger Kama had wanted to hear more but the other adults said eavesdropping on conversations was a bad thing and he wasn't old enough to listen to such horrid and uncanny things.

(He wisely decided not to tell that Hahaue encouraged them to eavesdrop, or that Kama had helped hunt and bury lone bandits that trespassed on their territory and is, therefore, old enough to listen to scary stories.)

They always described how ugly and scary-looking the tree was, and kept the children away because of how dangerous it was. The adults kept away too to prevent misfortune from spreading. They said the spirit of the tree never left even after many exorcisms and it was better left alone.

But looking at the moss-colored leaves, the smooth, white almost fleshy looking 'bark' and the occasional splash of red and black bleeding sap, Kama can say that it looks gnarled and strange but somehow pretty. Even if one of the branches really looks like a human arm (if you get the angle right), complete with a hand possessing what looked like fingernails, wrinkles and everything—and oh, there's Hahaue. He finally found her!

Shiroki was kneeling in front of a small stone marker, softly speaking to it, and Kama had never seen her so sad before. He didn't like it so he called out, "Hahaue, what are you doing?"

"Just saying my goodbyes, Kama-kun." 

She rose and turned to her son to herd him home, but Kama had already approached the rock behind her, and his eyes went wide as he read the name on it.

"His name is Hatake too, like ours. Is he your husband?"

"I'm afraid not", Hahaue replied, brushing the dust off the marker with 'Hatake no Yaken' carved onto it. "He was a very good friend of mine. He saved me a few times, more than duty dictated, and then we saved each other." She paused. "Maybe, if we had had more time, we could have married."

"Oh." Kama deflated, then puffed up again as if he had made an important decision. "Well, Hokama-san has been making weird lovey eyes at you, but you find him annoying so you can't marry him. So Yaken-san can be tousan, even if he's dead and a tree now. And we will still be Hatake and not Senju." He hid his smile and put a foot down for emphasis. (It's what Kobocha-otouto does when he gets scarily serious, and Kama is very serious about this.)

"And so we shall." Shiroki wetly chuckled and wiped her tears away. Then she ruffled her son's hair, causing him to erupt in giggles. "Now let's get back, before Hokama-san thinks we got kidnapped."

Kama pouted. "Hokama-san always thinks you get kidnapped whenever he cannot find you. Like you're some _hime_ he should rescue, even when you can break his face."

His Hahaue gave a mischievous smile (which everyone else grew to fear, when he inherited it.) "Let's hope he finds some other hime who can do that to him then."

**Author's Note:**

> And the mystery of Shiroki and the origin of the Hatake deepens. 
> 
> Also, Kama is such a disaster whirlwind child whose short attention span prevented him from asking all the important questions about the demonic tree possibly made out of human body parts. Geez.
> 
> This installment also has the biggest roster of original characters so far, so hopefully the names don't get too confusing.
> 
> **Warnings:** implications of murder performed by children, implications of murdered people being used as fertilizer, implications of crop batches being named after murdered people, and a really creepy tree
> 
> **Roster:**  
Hokama (outside) [外間] - Tema's father and Butsuma's grandfather; a user of Mokuton  
Momohime (hundred princess) [百姫] - the oldest and the female alpha of the Hatake wolf companions  
Suki (plough) [鋤] - one of Shiroki's daughters  
Tōgarashi (chili pepper) [唐辛子] - Shiroki's son who was among the first of the Hatake shinobi and has a very rare fire affinity  
Kabocha (winter squash) [南瓜] - one of Shiroki's sons and father of Shiso; the prodigy of the first generation of Hatake  
Mitsuba (parsley) [三つ葉] - one of Shiroki's sons  
Retasu (lettuce) [萵苣] - one of Shiroki's sons; an ancestor of Nasu   
Naya (outhouse) [納屋] - one of Shiroki's daughters  
Yuri (lily) [百合] - a runaway serving girl who made her way to Kyukei  
Kaya (yew) [榧] - an orphan who ended up in the Hatake farmlands  
Ima (living room) [居間] - a haughty Senju shinobi   
Kenja (wise man) [賢者] - the Kyukei village elder   
Hatake no Yaken (stray dog of the farmlands) [畑の 野犬] - a mysterious nameless samurai from Shiroki's past  
Shiroki (white sake presented as an offering to the gods) [白酒] - supposedly the first Hatake, a very pretty samurai-turned-farmer with more missing teeth than scars  
Kama (sickle) [鎌] - a Hatake elder who was once the shinobi clan head  
  
Kyukei (rest) [休憩] - a village in Sogen no Kuni where Shiroki brought his brood of children and raised them 


End file.
